


Not a Hero

by christinchen



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo [3]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26421220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/christinchen/pseuds/christinchen
Summary: Rodney is not a hero, he really is not. He would never do something as stupid as risk himself to protect someone else. Except to protect John.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1856212
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83
Collections: 37 - Round Thirty-Seven of Rounds of Kink, Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 11





	Not a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> written for [Round of Kink](https://rounds-of-kink.livejournal.com/) Round 37 and as a fill for my [H/C Bingo](https://hc-bingo.dreamwidth.org/) square of "accept injury to protect someone" on my [card](https://christinchen.dreamwidth.org/93377.html)

Rodney honestly doesn't know how he got to this point in his life. He was a scientist, for god's sake. He didn't do field work, he didn't go hiking through tough terrain in shitty weather, he didn't get chased by scary space vampires. And he sure as hell did not fight back against them. 

Before he had gone to Atlantis he had maybe seen the world outside his lab once a week, once a month when things were tough or even not for months on end when he had been stationed at the god forsaken, freezing end of the planet. He had been barely fit enough to jog to catch a city bus, and he sure as hell didn't know how to defend himself in a physical altercation, especially not with a gun. 

Rodney McKay wasn't a hero, he was a coward and he was damn proud of that fact because it was what kept him alive his entire life. 

If there was a fight breaking out he would be out of the door, even if he had been the one to start it. If there was a risky situation he would steer clear of it by a mile just to be on the safe side. He would double and triple check everything, his calculations (not that there were ever any mistakes to be found, thank you very much), his seatbelt and whether the stove was really turned off.

Rodney had a plan, always. He didn't do spontaneity, he detested people who just flew into situations by the seat of their pants. 

And then Rodney was offered a position in Atlantis. An expedition that was a risk, that had no guarantee to ever return to earth, that had no guarantees at all. And he took it. He gave his cat away, packed his things and walked through the glimmering surface of the Stargate. He took a risk.

He wanted to say that it had turned out alright but he had almost died three separate times in the first 48 hours alone. And countless times since.  
He wanted to say that the prospect of certain death lost it's terror after more than a dozen times but that also wasn't true. Every single time left him awash with fear, shaking for hours afterwards. Having nightmares of his own death had become normal within the first month and hadn't stopped since. 

But the nightmares had changed. They had changed the way Rodney himself had changed.

He had been put through basic weapons training in his first week on Atlantis, after he had joined a gate team. Rodney from before Atlantis would have never joined a gate team. But again Rodney had taken a chance, a risk. It didn't promise the reward of a reputable position, of unknown scientific research that would ultimately lead to his Nobel prize this time. Being on a gate team promised nothing but scary things and being shot at. And John Sheppard. 

So Rodney took a risk and it didn't turn out alright. He got shot at, he was being chased across foreign planets and he had to point and shoot his gun at space vampires that wanted to suck his life force out of him, he was being hurt and tortured and abducted. And he kept asking himself why the hell he was even doing this when he could be sitting in a nice warm lab doing important research.

And then he would look up at John tied to the wall across from him in their tiny, damp cell and realize that he kept doing it for the same reason his nightmares had changed. He still dreamt about his own death, he still woke up from those dreams covered in sweat and shaking. But the nights he dreamt about losing John were worse. He would wake screaming himself raw, with tears on his face, unable to go back to sleep. 

Looking at John's beat up face now, swollen and bloody, he knows it will star in his nightmares tonight. Or maybe tomorrow night, depending on how long they are going to be kept here before they are rescued or John finds a way to save them. That's how these hostage situations usually go, Rodney knows that by now. 

John looks tired, his eyes barely staying open, but it would only be a matter of time before they take him again. They've done this four times now. Marched into their cell, asked who of them volunteered to be taken for questioning. John would always demand they take him. They would then drag John off, returning him an hour later, more beaten up than before, with more blood on his skin and clothes. They would chain him back up to the wall, giving him an hour to rest before coming back, asking the same question again: “ Which one of you holds the answers we seek.”

Rodney can see John struggling to stay conscious. His eyes keep closing seemingly on their own accord. They keep snapping open just a second later. 

“Rest,” Rodney tells him quietly. “Please just… please just rest a moment.”

John shakes his head, but the motion seems uncoordinated, and Rodney vaguely thinks that it's probably bad for the concussion he definitely has. 

“Please, John,” he repeats. Rodney can see him losing the battle against his eyelids. You shouldn't let concussed people sleep, he thinks, or maybe that was about hypothermia, or maybe both. He isn't sure anymore. What he is sure of however is that John needs to rest. And that they need a better plan than letting John take a beating until the bad guys get tired of it. 

By the time the heavy footsteps once again come down the corridor outside their cell Rodney had made up his mind.  
“Take me,” he says as soon as the cell door opens. 

John doesn't wake the entire time it takes to unchain him and lead him outside. That alone worries Rodney more than anything that is about to be done to him. 

Rodney isn't a hero, he doesn't volunteer himself to be taken in someone's place, he doesn't put himself in harm's way on purpose. Not even to protect his friends, they can all take care of themselves, hold their own in a battle or an interrogation, much better than Rodney.

But John can't do that right now and at some point making sure that John is alright had become his job. Just as it is John’s job to take care of him. But that had been this way since the beginning, Rodney thinks, this development, his responsibility, was new. But Rodney had never been one to back down from responsibility. 

So he doesn’t. He lets them take him to the interrogation room, lets them chain him to a chair. Sitting is a nice change from being chained to a wall for hours. 

“Alright, then,” he starts once he settled down. He determinedly does not look at the table to his left which holds a great many, what he thinks might be medical devices but he doubts they were being used that way. It feels like a stone is being beamed straight into his stomach. They tortured John here. 

“Let’s talk then,” he says in a voice that is a lot steadier than he feels.

When they take him back to the cell over an hour later his shoulders hurt from being chained up, his legs are numb from sitting in the uncomfortable chair, his throat is sore and his voice is hoarse. He stumbles through the door with a push to the back from the guard, the door falls into lock behind him. They didn’t chain him back up to his wall, he realizes with a start. 

A second later he realizes that John is staring at him with wide, worried, scared, _terrified_ eyes.  
“John,” he breathes, stumbling towards him on unsteady legs. 

“They hurt you.” It’s not a question. 

“I’m fine,” he croaks out, sounding anything but reassuring. His fingers finally close around the shackles around John’s wrists, and he pulls at the closure. It’s locked but old and rusty and really, if he could just get his fingers to pull the peg from the … ahh, right there. The chains fall to the ground with a loud rattling noise and John all but falls against him. Rodney tries to catch him, break his fall, but only manages to slow their tumble to the cold concrete floor. 

They end up in a tangle of limbs, breathing heavily. John's eyes are closed and he seems to be swaying ever so slightly. Rodney runs a worried hand over his head, through his hair. It comes out sticky and red with blood. 

“Fuck, you're bleeding,” he curses softly, “and probably also concussed.”

“Yeah,” John agrees easily. “Now tell me what those bastards did to you!”

“I'm fine,” Rodney repeats, not taking his eyes off the blood running down the side of John's face.

“They took you,” John grinds out. “They took you, Rodney.”

“Yes, John. They took me, to interrogate me, just like they have taken you before.”

“No. It's my job to get tortured. It's my job to protect you. It's your job to figure out a genius plan to rescue us.” John yells, his face red with exertion. 

“And it's my job to take care of you when you're passed out because you had to play the hero. Besides this was recon for my big rescue plan.”

Rodney can see the moment John's urge to yell at him some more gives way to the comprehension of the second half of what he said.  
“So, what's the plan then?”

“You don't die of brain damage in the next half an hour or however long it takes for the rescue I ordered to show up. That's all you have to do.”

“And how pray tell did you manage to 'order' a rescue team?”

“You know how they wanted us to build a bomb for them?” Rodney asks. John makes a noise in response that Rodney takes as ‘I didn't exactly listen before I refused purely on principle and let them beat the crap out of me like the moron hero I am’ or something along those lines.

“Well, I built them a bomb…” he continues.

“You what?!” He is interrupted. And really, the yelling is not good for John or their rescue plan, so Rodney shushes him.

“I built them a bomb, a small non nuclear bomb. It's currently ‘calibrating’, which is to say sending a message to Atlantis, but they don't need to know that,” Rodney looks at John smugly. John looks back vaguely cross-eyed. Which is not a surprise given how close his face is, and why is his face so close anyway? Oh, they’re still on the floor with their arms around each other. Rodney wonders if he should move or at least let go. But having John this close is sort of nice. 

“They took you,” is what John says after a moment. And Rodney is now seriously worried about John’s concussion and possible brain damage. 

“Yes, yes. We’ve been over that,” he sighs. “You were passed out, because they tortured you, mind you. So I told them to take me instead. I managed to not only not get tortured but also implement a rescue plan.”

“They didn’t hurt you?”

“No, they didn’t hurt me. They threatened to hurt me, but they didn’t hurt me because I agreed to build them their bomb.”

John sort of slums against him. Which given how little space there is between them to begin with ends with their heads leaning against each other. Rodney feels more than hears the sigh fall from John’s lips. 

“They didn’t hurt you.”

“No, they didn’t. But they hurt you and right now I’m really worried about your head, John.”

“It’s fine,” he murmurs. “I got scared when I opened my eyes and you were gone. I think I hit it on the wall, trying to get out of those chains.”

“Idiot.”

“No, worried. They don’t get to take you for questioning and tortue. That’s my job. They could have hurt you, Rodney.”

“Yeah, they could have. They also could have killed you if they would have taken you again and beaten you again. So really there was not much choice there.”

“So you had to go and be a big hero?” John chuckles softly.

“I’m not a hero,” Rodney protests. “I’m really the opposite of a hero, I’m a coward. I gave into their demands within seconds.”

“You know, this whole ‘No, take me instead’ thing is usually what gets me called a ‘damn hero’ by you, so…” John grins. 

“That’s not what… Oh my god, it totally is what happened.” Rodney isn’t quite sure how to process this. “I did something heroic by accident.”

“Yup.”

“So… for once, that makes you the damsel in distress then,” Rodney can’t help but tease. It’s a familiar jab. John likes to tease him with it after he has rescued Rodney every once in a while. Only after missions where he wasn’t in mortal danger and only if he wasn’t hurt badly. Like, when Rodney got arrested for drunk and disorderly once after a harvest festival and had to spend the night in a jail cell or when he had been stuck up that tree for an hour or gotten locked out of his quarter by a system malfunction. But never ever when it was serious. And he isn’t sure if now is the right time to tease John, or if it is even welcome. Because this is serious. John was, is in danger. He’s hurt. They’re still inside a cell. Their captors could come back any moment, could have figured out Rodney’s ruse, maybe the signal didn’t send and no help is coming. 

“Guess it does,” John smiles instead. “That means I deserve a kiss, right?” And then he leans in and presses his lips against Rodney. 

An explosion rocks through the building, dust and debris falls around them. 

“Oh, hey. That should be our rescue team,” Rodney smiles. “I send them the codes to blow up that bomb.” He closes the gap between their lips again, they should have another minute or two and he is determined to use it.


End file.
